Facebook Phone Dreaming

As you well know by now,Facebook is set to be valued at a massive 100+ billion dollars and at 24% ownership, that places Mark Zuckerberg at roughly number 6 on the Forbes list . That’s a lot of money! Now,noted,it doesn’t necessarily mean they have this much in cash but it does mean they are up there in public opinion and value. Facebook has pretty much become a brand-name and is everywhere you go on your online real-estate. Which makes me wonder, shouldn’t they be making moves for space in your pocket real estate via mobile?

Now, I’m sure they’ve pretty much made moves in this arena conceptually and frankly, the market does seem pretty much saturated at this point with Apple and Android constantly gunning for the top position (Android has the largest market share currently); RIM trying to make a comeback and Windows Phone constantly struggling for relevance. You’d think “there’s no way in hell Facebook could get into this market and make any impact”. I thought so too, but thinking critically, Im not so sure anymore. Look for instance at the tablet market dominated by the iPad. You already know tablets are pretty much synonymous with the iPad brand and nobody could even challenge their reign at the top. Android tablets have tried but we all know how that has gone. But lo and behold, Amazon take the Android OS, take it apart, build it back up to an utterly unrecognizable version of the OS and go on to sell a butt-load of their Kindle FIre, beating all sales of Android tablets that have come before it.

Which makes me wonder, Facebook could totally do the same thing. Facebook already has all your contact details, everybody you know is already on Facebook. They know more about you than you yourself would care to even know bout yourself. They have an astronomical amount of apps that already serve their user base .They recently bought Instagram, so they currently own the most popular and beloved photo-sharing services around. They have a messenger app on most mobile platforms that you can literally chat with anyone you want to as long as they have a Facebook account. All they’d have to do is pretty much re-skin the Android OS since its open-source and bam! Instant mobile phone OS. Get a Chinese hardware maker to come up with the hardware parts for the OS and now we are talking. What is a phone if not a social device and what better way to improve the overall experience by coupling it with the number one social platform in the world? Believe me, once you use a smartphone, there’s no going back to the dumbphone experience (cough cough,Symbian,cough cough).

Frankly, I think that is the next step for Facebook. How long can the desktop page continue to draw users? More people have mobile phones than actual pc’s. I think its time to evolve and get a Facebook phone out.. How about you?